Believe it or not, America’s only Einstein Museum is located at the back of a 97-year-old clothing store known for its woolen sweaters and tweed blazers. Among the fine lodens and cashmeres for sale in Landau’s on Nassau Street in Princeton is an exhibit full of reproduced photographs and documents, as well as other memorabilia related to Albert Einstein. In 1933, Albert Einstein renounced his German citizenship and briefly took refuge in England, before moving to New Jersey where he worked until his death in 1955. But Einstein’s connection to the university town isn’t the reason why the museum exists, it actually began with the 1994 romantic comedy I.Q., which starred Walter Mattheu as the world’s most famous genius. While making the film a few locals let Landau borrow some Einstein artifacts, which led to the permanent exhibit five years later. In 2005, the university finally put up a monument honouring Einstein in a nearby park. Why it took so long to recognise to world’s most famous scientist is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma that can only be solved by Einstein himself.
